


the bitter suite VI

by The Ocean (Vileplume)



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, kinda cerebral, tags to be updated, takes place vaguely after yaldabaoth get kicked from the velvet room but before the third semester, the metanav is fair game! i swear it is!, this time we're testing metaverse rules, unreality TW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vileplume/pseuds/The%20Ocean
Summary: Palaces are singular instances, a concrete, testable metaphor. Controllable. The metaverse app is a navigation app. It provides you with a map. Reality → Metaphor. That's all it is. You have to go from point a to point b yourself.If you're in a location in the metaphor, where are you in real life? 3D walking, in real life. You, your own head, is another axis on which you move. 5D living.You have unlocked the chains that Yaldabaoth placed upon the navigation app you have been given. The true power of the metaverse app is now yours to wield.god wildcards au...?
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	the bitter suite VI

**Author's Note:**

> _It's all cognition, right? We're playing with real people's lives, here. Don't you get that?_

_... and in that moment it all passed, breathless, through his fingers, like fog._

"Fuck," he spat. "Shit, fuck, god damn it." With a twisted, frustrated grimace, he raised his hand again. The _red eye of the metaverse app sat steady and red, painting his hand, his sight,_ everything.

He let Wakaba's words run through his head one more time, and felt the grooves dig deep and smooth like spinning wheels - uncontrolled thought speed and rough _frustration - Identify, imagine, manifest - > in this word of dreams, everything is entirely dependent on perception. Reality is the exact same way. Imagine - "You have unlocked the..."_ \- Lavenza in static - _"... the true power of the Metaverse app..."_ \- Lavenza's voice, in memory -

Focus! Focus, focus - "Focus, focus, focus, fuck!" He shouted, throwing his hands up violently-- slowly lowering them in a controlled motion. Everything is under control. It just kept escaping him, like fog. _What was it? What's the trick? I am here, in - --- ---_

 _Metaverse._  
Metaphor - universe.  
Everything about  
Reality is perception. Controlled disassociation - none of this is real. None of this is real. _The weight of the phone in my hand, the staring eye, the staring camera, watching, watching, watch watch watch -_

 _The rhythm of the thought helped him focus. Watch. The red_ of the eye, staring, until nothing was left. What is left -

A man's shoulder collided with his own and Akira was violently pushed to the side, disoriented and shocked. Catching himself before he could crash into a lady who adjusted her bag and moved to the side without a glance, Akira stumbled to a stop amidst a heavy hum of voices and footsteps. People, there are so many people here - Akira stumbled to the side again to avoid another person as they rushed past. He had to go.. He should not be standing here. In the middle of the street, if he stayed, he was just in the way. He felt for his bag and, holding it carefully so Morgana wouldn't be jostled, he pushed his way forward. Blindly. He could see - above himself, was he dreaming?

Akira stopped again. The crowd felt distant and grey. Instead of crowded, he felt cold. Cold?

Akira stopped. The eye watched him. His room was dark and cold.

Damn! He was onto something there. Crowd, there were people - there was... Mona was...

Akira closed his eyes. This room, it's not real, he's there. He can't waste time, he needs to move, because if he doesn't move, he will -

Akira Kurusu opened his third eye.  
Akechi Goro grabbed his hand.

"Stop following me." His face was twisted and frustrated. His grip was tight, and warm. "I know what you're doing. You figured out the real purpose of the metaverse app, haven't you?"

Of course he did, and it stung to be questioned. Yaldabaoth's bastardized, simplified metaphor. The metaverse app is a navigation app. A navigation app is a copy of -

The crowd jostled Akira to the side, but Akechi's grip didn't let go. There was constant motion and sound, everywhere, and then there was Akechi, in violent color, vivid and furious. To balance, Akira pulled his arm towards his chest, and only succeeded in swaying towards Akechi, swinging everything into close focus. Akechi didn't let go.

"There are rules," Akechi bit out, directly, to Akira's face. "Do not blur the lines between dreams and reality."

He really looked like he fucking meant it. But before Akira could reply -

"You idiot," Akechi spat. "You need to figure out what you really want, instead of allowing yourself to be controlled by the people that you think you care about, that you only _think_ give a shit about _you_." Reaching up and grasping Akira's empty hand with his other hand while still holding on with his left, Akechi was grabbing for something. "If you continue this, then fine. But it will only be by your will! I won't let my rival destroy the world for anything else. So get it together, or get the fuck out!"

Akechi's finger slammed on the button, and awareness slammed back into place.

The stillness was _shocking_ after everything was so loud, just a few seconds ago. The chaos lingered in his limbs - even though the attic was freezing, Akira's body was burning with energy. His hand was shaking, and his pulse was high. His arm was still buzzing with a phantom sensation.

Akira was sitting on his bed, in Leblanc's attic, and there was a chill coming from behind him where the windows were, and for a moment Akechi was there, demanding all of his attention, and he...

And abruptly, everything felt so... awful. So Akira locked his phone, pulled his arms in to his chest, curled up, and gave a long, slow exhale. Instead of crying, he inhaled. Instead of thinking, he exhaled again. And then when his heart rate had slowed, he stared at the floor until Mona padded up the steps. Akira sat up before Mona came into view, and let Morgana stop and look at him with clear, curious eyes. "You're back? Did it work? How do you feel?"

(Good. Bad. Never better.)

Mona jumped up onto the bed with a soft _thump_ and pushed his way under Akira's arm, looking for pets, just like a cat. "You've tried this every night for a few weeks, huh?" he chirped from somewhere below Akira's elbow. "Man, the thieves would be excited to hear about any progress." Akira tried to give him scratches behind the ear, which Mona avoided in favor of jumping onto Akira's leg and pawing at his chest. "You're the only one who can do this, okay? So we're all counting on you!"

He looked so hopeful. "Alright," Akira said. "That's all for today."

"My master is resting. When he regains his strength, we will have much to do."

Chains... a singer. Akira's eyes opened to a deep, unnatural blue.

"The usurper has been removed from the Velvet Room. It will take a while to undo all that he has done." Lavenza's soft voice filled the room as Akira stepped out of his cell and stood before her. "May we ask for your cooperation, trickster, one more time?"

(Of course. Do I have a choice? What's the plan?)

Lavenza nodded solemnly, but her eyes were sparkling. "Of course. It was never in question. You have always been very kind."

The Velvet Room was mostly empty - Lavenza stood in front of the large desk and empty chair. Calmly, she raised her small hand up to reach for Akira. "Your phone, please?" Akira handed it over with little hesitation. She took it gently and placed her hand over the top of the screen without unlocking it. "When the God of Control took over, he placed limits on the powers that persona users could use. You know of one such limit."

(Do I? I do. Akechi.)

"Yes. Goro Akechi is a wildcard, and yet he only has two personas. I'm sure he often wondered why that was the case."

She looked sad. Her hands were curling over the phone.

Lavenza closed her eyes. "Goro Akechi was Yaldabaoth's champion, but you were ours. Even before my master's full strength returns to him, I believe that there are now things that we can do for you. One of those things -"

Before his eyes, Akira watched as Lavenza lifted a book where she was previously holding a phone. The pages fluttered as she flipped through them with her eyes closed, kicking up wind and dust.

"- is this. Do you understand the metaverse in the form you've explored it?"

Akira sure goddamn _hopes_ he does. Morgana, exposition with a tail, did the best he could as their hope and guide. The metaverse is based on public cognition, and is another world where desires become reality.

Lavenza's eyes seemed to glow with a passionate light when she opened them to announce, "That is fundamentally incorrect."

The sound of fluttering pages filled his ears.

"This misunderstanding is not your fault. Because the collective unconsciousness and the sea of souls is so large, you may think of the 'Metaverse' as a 'distorted island' where desires are made manifest. These islands can appear for any reason - The god of control is only one of those reasons."  
She placed her hand back on the top of the book as the pages slowed to a stop. Akira could see the words underneath.  
"But it is not another world."

  
"So she just gave you this?" Ann leaned over the table, displacing Ryuji and Makoto's cups to reach for Akira's phone. Akira handed it over for her examine up close. "That's so cool!"

"Hey, let us see!" Ryuji said, pushing his cup out of the way and leaning forward too to peek.

To his right, Makoto grabbed both cups before they could fall. "Don't shake the table _too_ much!"

The thieves were all sitting in Leblanc's, scattered around the table they had been eating at. Across from Ann, Akira watched as she held it back from Ryuji's swinging arms while she tapped at it. Across from Ryuji and Makoto, Futaba looked half ready to climb out of the booth herself to get a look.

"It's all purple, now!" Ann turned it to show to the rest of the table.

"That's how you can tell it's been upgraded," Mona said from Akira's side, all matter-of-fact.

Yusuke leaned over Ann's shoulder to peer intently at the metanav, upside down. "It is certainly more purple than before..."

"Woahh.." Futaba exhaled. "Like a massive update. Metanav 2.0!" Ann passed the phone to Futaba, who hopped up to pace.

"Think of all the new shit we could do with this!" Ryuji said, crashing back into his chair. Across the table, Haru reached, preemptively, to steady her plate.

Makoto raised her hand. "What _can_ we do, exactly? I think we should know what the new metanav can do before we start making plans." She crossed her arms, thinking. "Joker?"

Mona hopped up onto the table. "Yeah, what did Lady Lavenza say?"

Joker turned from watching Futaba pace and type on his own phone to see the entire table focused on him attentively. He paused to think.

"... Yaldabaoth made the metaverse app, and didn't give us all of its abilities. We should be able to access those now."

Akira was considering how to continue when Futaba hopped back to the table. Her eyes were super bright. "Everything looks totally different now. See, instead of just three spaces for keywords, there are a _bunch_ more buttons for us to check out." She put the phone back down on the table. "Palace Directory is over here, and there's a Mementos shortcut over here. That's all I can recognize, but I _really_ wanna find out what these other options do."

Ryuji leaned over. "What's this one? Cognitive Mirror?"

Akira reached over and tapped the button. The screen went dark.

Everyone paused. "Ah..."

"I'm not sure what that was supposed to do..." Makoto drawled.

"Huh..? It looks like..." Ann reached over and raised the phone - and her eyes went wide. "J-Joker?" From beside her, Yusuke was making a similar face.

On the screen was the Phantom Thief Joker, in full regalia, sitting in the ordinary Leblanc booth. His expression was characteristically unreadable. Behind the screen, Akira tilted his head, curious.

Ann grinned, and tapped the screen to a flash of white light. "I was thinking it looked like a camera. I'm glad to be right!"

"Oh, of course, Ann!" Haru said, clapping her hands. "Well done!"

"Just what I'd expect from our Panther!" Mona chirped. In Akira's photo storage, there was now a single photo of the leader of the phantom thieves of hearts. Looking at it, Akira quietly combed his hair with his fingers.

Makoto uncrossed her arms. "It looks like it shows us our cognitive selves. We'll have to test if people can see this if they haven't been in the metaverse yet."

"Yo, can I get a picture too?"

"Strike a pose!" Ann pointed the phone. "No, not like _that_ , Ryuji!"

"We'll have to take a look at those other buttons too."

"Such an avant-garde position."

"Woaa! It looks like the Metanav 2.0 is on my phone, too!"

"Oh my. It's on mine!"

"Don't start hitting buttons! We don't know what these do. We'll go through the options one at a time, alright?"

Akira reached for his phone as everyone took out their own phones and began to talk amongst themselves. Morgana dropped back down next to Akira as he slid the phone back in his pocket.

"Hey, Joker. Is that really all Lady Lavenza said about the Metanav 2.0?"

It definitely wasn't, but Akira wasn't sure how to describe it all. Because the Velvet Room wasn't a physical place that he could go, everything about it ended up feeling very dreamlike, and whenever he would try to explain the things that happen in there, it would all come out (at best) disconnected or (at worst) incomprehensible. It was difficult to even want to try.

Morgana could probably understand that, though. So Akira shook his head no.

Mona hummed. "Hm, yeah? We can definitely use some of this stuff for thieving. So be sure to give it all you've got."

Akira ran his hand over Mona's head, watching his ears twitch, and nodded in response.

Perception is _everything._ When your perception does not match up with reality, or begins to cause damage to reality, it is called Distorted. Then, why do palaces exist? If your distorted perception becomes strong enough, the metaverse will knot to reflect it.

Yaldabaoth made the moving process mirror tech so that it's understandable and ordered. One Solid Concept -> One Metaverse Location. Keywords as the parameters.

But the original navigation process didn't need to be so contained.

Palaces are singular instances, a concrete, testable metaphor. Controllable. The metaverse app is a navigation app. It provides you with a map. Reality -> Metaphor. That's all it is. You have to go from point a to point b yourself. If you convince yourself that your room is just like a tomb can you make it a tomb in the metaverse? Intentionally? If you're in a location in the metaphor, where are you in real life? 3D walking, in real life. You, your own head, is another axis on which you move. 5D living.

Yaldabaoth is the God of Control. The nature of human minds are that they're malleable, fluid, changeable. If you close your eyes and see a concrete wall, it is an illusion. So in order to have anything TO control, you'd need something actually concrete. That was the metaverse - something with rules.

The rules are Metaverse -> Metaphor Verse.  
The metaphor is static. The real person is not. Tie them together, and if you control the metaphors, you control the people.

Metaverse -> Metaphor-universe. In the same way that a mirror reflects the world, the metaverse reflects our perceived reality. Every single bit of the 'metaverse' reflects something that exists in reality. By traveling back and forth between modes, you can change your perception, and thus change the world.

This is not another world.  
This _is_ the world.  
Just in a different _form_  
_lens_  
way.

But the most important part is the secret, the thing that explains how the translation can manifest in real life, instead of being purely theoretical ...

the secret..

is...

  
Joker caught a glimpse of the things written in the book that Lavenza snapped shut before holding it back out to him. There are _so much more_ things out there than just Yaldabaoth, the metaverse, and the metanav.

Joker understood.

You have unlocked the chains that Yaldabaoth placed upon the navigation app you have been given. The true power of the metaverse app is now yours to wield.

"This power is yours, now," Lavenza said, placing Akira's phone back in his hand. "You will use this to lead us to salvation... or to ruin."

**Author's Note:**

> (God Wildcards AU.... sort of.)


End file.
